I truly am my own worst enemy.  I have come to the conclusion that when nothing is wrong my brain works hard to find what might be wrong and I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.  This comes from my PTSD and being on high alert constantly.  It has ruined more than one relationship in my life.  I have very little trust and when I partner up with someone who is less than completely honest or does not communicate clearly with me it is a recipe for disaster.   I am having so much anxiety today.  The unknown is terrifying for me and there is so much in my life that is unknown right now.  I am mourning loss and the clouds are so dark I can’t see my future.  I know I am blessed.  If I could just stop feeling this way I would.

Wednesday afternoon I logged out of Facebook on my computer and took the apps off my phone.

Wednesday night I got anxious that I might miss a message from someone that is important and logged back on to see.

Later Wednesday night I got even more anxious and went on messenger to see if my last pm’s had been read.

Thursday morning in my car I start thinking of logging in.

Thursday morning at my desk …”I will just check my messages really quick.”  As soon as I logged in I felt sick.  My stomach tensed up, my pulse went up and I felt I would throw up.

I just logged out again and will do my best not to log in again.  I need to explain that this is not just about Facebook and Facebook is not an evil thing.  It is however how I keep a connection with people and that is my real addiction.  I need to feel cared about.  This morning I listened to a guided meditation and it said “now imagine a time when you felt completely loved unconditionally by a significant other”  Blank….I started running my life through my mind and getting more and more upset as I realized I had nothing…..no time I felt completely loved by someone. I believe this is why I love so deeply…because it is what I want for myself.  So for now I will love myself and keep away from the website that only feeds my insecurity.

So I went back to Facebook for over a month.  It was great to talk to people and I was happy to get the many messages and connections back I had been missing.  I was able to read messages I really related to on a group I am a part of which helped in my healing and I wrote some things to share with others.  So for that reason I loved being back on Facebook.  But oh Facebook how I can hate you.  It is truly like a love, hate relationship.  After a short time back on I saw something that broke my heart.  I would not have seen it if I had not been on Facebook.  I thought I was ok.  I thought I was over it. But that is not who I am.  When I love I love deeply.  I won’t go into what I saw but let’s just say it made me feel my whole life had been taken over by someone else.  Now, to be fair that is not true but tell my squirrels that.  They have called a national squirrel conference to discuss all the topics in relation to this newest revelation they have made.  It’s like RIT up there right now, not enough room and nowhere to park.  So I am calling out the big guns to get rid of all this mess going on in my head that is holding me back.  I am enacted the following:

1. The squirrels will be thrown out as soon as they start chattering in my ear about how I am not good enough and that someone has taken everything from me.  I have hired Officer 99 to take care of that for me.  For those who do not know the reference, he is the most bad ass notorious parking officer RIT has ever had. His number is retired now but he is still around.  I have great respect for him and I know that the one I have created in my mind to get the squirrels in line will be just as bad ass.  Get busy 99, there is some illegal parking going on!
2. Facebook is being kicked to the curb.  I left a message on Saturday saying I would be gone in 24 hours and then the incident happened and I felt I needed a few more days.  So it is now Tuesday and I am logging off…thinking of getting rid of it completely.  I don’t want to see who is going where without me.  I don’t want to start feeling sorry for myself and have the squirrels start a drum circle around me chanting “I told you so.”  They are so mean.
3. I am going to go full force into my hobbies.  I had let them fall to the wayside and then recently I was just feeling frozen because I was not sure which ones to take up again.  I will be traveling with my housemate Keith wherever he wants to go. We are also going to be making some films and music in the house.   I will be working on the festival.  I will be going back to my daily ritual practice and inviting people for ritual.  I will be putting lots of energy into a new club with my friend Sara.  I am going to work on painting old Mary statues I find at thrift stores to look like Goth Queens (I have two to work on now).  I will be focused on my tarot readings, start Tai Chi and continue with the Chorus.  So these things should be plenty to keep me busy.
4. I am going to spend more quality time with my housemate and my closest friends.  My sadness drives me to hide in the darkness of my room for way too many hours.  I share a house with the coolest guy in Rochester and I have some major kick ass friends.  It is time to invite them into my inner sanctum and bring some light and laughter there.
5. I am going to forgive.  Wishing destruction on those who have injured me is not going to help me in the long run.  It just gets the squirrels in my head trying on military outfits and talking about which hat matches which weapon.  If something happened I would feel guilty and just terrible.  The natural law of life takes care of the lessons we need to learn and I had some painful lessons to learn.  I cannot wish similar pain on others.  They have their own path to walk.   I trust the universe and I am working on letting that anger and hurt go.
6. It is time to focus on me.  I cannot spend another moment waiting on something that may not happen.  If it does it does, Wonderful!  If it doesn’t I will be so busy that after awhile I won’t even think about it anymore.    I will practice the art of letting go and not being attached to the outcome.

So that is my plan.  Of course the squirrels now have it in possession and are right at this moment studying it so they can make a counter attack.  I will need reinforcements occasionally because sometimes it is just overwhelming.

As for all those positive statements people throw my way I already have one I am going to use…  If life hands you lemons, throw those fuckers out. Quit complaining and get on with your life.

Or…

hmmm…I don’t think that is a bear…but anyway…

It is time to get on with my life.

Thanks for reading my blog.  Since I am no longer on Facebook you can contact me by email if you want to talk to me.  Goddessphoenixmedusa@gmail.com

I don’t think that really matters.  I need to write and create art to heal.  I know that not everyone who reads my blog is reading it because they like me or know me.  I do know that a couple of people read it because they don’t like me.  It doesn’t matter how I know.  I just do.  But I am writing this for me.  I will not sugar coat my words and I will not hide anything.  I know that my words have helped other women and men who have been in pain from a breakup or who have PTSD, anxiety and depression.  I have to be honest when I found out that my blog was being used to poke fun of me I almost took it down…for like half a second.  But here is the thing…I graduated from that 7th grade mentality.  I got sucked into it when I was hanging in a place where it seems to permeate every being who steps in there.  I remember those bullies from middle school.  They just grew up and moved to a new venue.  I will not have a part in it anymore.  So take my words…copy and paste them…send links to people so you can talk about me…whatever you need to do to feel better about yourself.  It is not hurting me it is only helping me.  You may wonder why it helps.  It helps me to realize that I am truly in the right place and I am so glad I am not stuck there anymore.   I just wanted to say…I see you….and I wish you the best in life.

Last night I opened up and was honest about something I had kept to myself for over a year.  It is not something I feel I can share completely on my Facebook or in this blog.  I did however need to share it with the person I was the closest to at the time it happened before I could heal and start to share at least some of it with all of you.  It hurt my heart that I was not able to share it when it happened.  It was just too risky.  I did not trust I would be supported.  I was in a place of danger emotionally.  I was thinking of suicide on a regular basis.   It was the biggest thing that drove me to finally get help and to stop drinking.  After months of wrestling with sharing  I wrote the letter last night and sent it with my heart pounding.  I did not know if I would get a response and if I did if it would help or  make things worse.   The response was loving and understanding.  I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of me.  I drug that secret around like a rotting corpse all that time and the thing that stopped me from being honest was my own stories in my mind.  Now I see more clearly and I believe that he would have embraced me and been supportive…but I did not believe it then because of trust issues.  But the bottom line to all of this is that I need to always be with someone I trust and can share such momentous things that affect my whole life.   This issue was huge.  I withdrew emotionally and came close to giving up my life over it.

I am so glad I gave up getting intoxicated 9 months ago.  Drinking alone is dangerous for women.  I found that out the hard way.  If you are out drinking and you do not have friends to watch out for you things can happen.  There are predators everywhere.  There are some wonderful men and women out there who will help you, watch out for you and even stop someone trying to take advantage of you.  There are also people who watch for a woman or a man who is alone, intoxicated and vulnerable.  They do not care about consent.   I really don’t want to share more than that about what happened to me but I am sure it is pretty obvious.  I felt so much shame that after all this time something like this could happen to me.  But, it did and now I can heal and move on.  I am moving up another level in my healing and I am beginning to enjoy my life again.

When we do not love ourselves we chase everyone away who is trying to love us.  I truly believe that.

I am so new at this loving myself thing that I feel like I am going to college again.  I am reading all the time and writing everyday.  I have a pile of books by my bed and yesterday I got a Kindle Fire and added some free books there.  I want to finally understand and practice truly loving myself.  I am in charge of my own happiness and I have to live with this mind, body and spirit.  Since we are one 24 hours a day it is going to go a whole lot easier if I love myself.  The last couple of days have been better.  I feel like my sadness has lifted and I am not craving touch like I was.  I feel I am turning a corner.  So I will keep working at this and doing things I love that I had set aside to love someone else.  It will keep getting better.  I know it will.   Here is an article I read today that was helpful.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/91640-8-ways-to-love-yourself-for-people-who-have-never-really-understood-what-loving-yourself

To my little sister who is a brave warrior like me.  I am so proud of you.  You are going to come out of this a stronger woman who can conquer anything life throws your way.  I will always be here for you.

Well in my case everything.  I know for me that love and trust must be present for me to enjoy any kind of true intimacy.   I have spent my life being intimate for two reasons.

1. Because I felt obligated to
2. Because I love them

The first one is quite sad and I have to say is probably the majority of my interactions when I was younger and even into recent years.  For some reason as a young woman I felt obligated to have sex even if I did not want to because I felt guilt if I aroused a man.  I would disconnect mentally in those situations and the only joy I got out of it was I felt I was making someone else happy.  I however was not happy.  The second reason is what happened when I was intimate with someone I liked.  It would not be long before I loved them and then not long after that I was hurt because in almost all cases the love was not returned.  I have a knack for picking emotionally unavailable men.   There has to be a reason for that and I am pretty sure I have figured it out.  I don’t love myself so I do not trust men who truly show love for me and respect me.  I pick men who reject me and could care less if I drop over tomorrow because they only want what I can give right now until they find something better.  Subconsciously my reasoning is they are safer but in fact they are dangerous to my heart and only cause me more pain and more scarring.    So I have made a choice about this whole thing.  It is a big undertaking but I feel it is something I must do.  The next 9 months are dedicated to getting to know me better and healing.  I have been celibate for 3 months and I am going to continue that for another 9.  I want at least one year with no sexual contact.  I think I need a cleansing and a new start.  I never want to be with another person who is not emotionally available.  I never want to have sex again because I feel obligated.  I want to be able to trust the right people and not give myself to someone who only wants to use me.

I have also come to a very important conclusion about myself.  People think because of my festival and my openness that I am all kinds of things.  I did try poly and found it was not for me.  I want someone who adores me and does not need to have three other women to be happy.  I am not knocking my poly friends.  I believe you should do what makes you happy.  It does not make me happy.  I am a Queen at heart and I need someone who loves me as deeply as I love.  Right now that makes me almost cringe thinking about it because I am still working through my issues of loving myself.  Someday I am going to be OK with being loved that deeply because it is truly what I want.  I am a work in progress.

I have to give a few things up to progress in my life.  I am leveling up to a new way of living.  So goodbye to… Vertex, fuckboys, pity parties, feeling obligating and caring what anyone says about my choices.  I don’t want to be touched until I am ready to be touched.  I am off limits until I am ready to open up again.

Universe….let’s do this.

It really is ok to be sad sometimes.  It is ok to regret things you have done.  It is ok to cry till snot runs all over the place and you feel like you cannot breath.  It is ok to let all of that sadness out.  In fact it feels good.  After I cry I sleep.  After I cry I feel relief.  I need to stop holding that shit in for days.

As stated in an earlier post I made today I refuse to let others dictate to me what I should feel.  I am a deeply passionate loving person.  I love deeply and when I lose a love I mourn.  I have been mourning for three months.  Actually I was mourning before that but I did not realize it.  I have been mourning myself.

So here I am and as you can see from my eyes…I am sad but I am building up a flame inside and I am rising again.  I am working hard on all those things through all the years that have kept me down.  I have learned that if I want to be happy I have to have boundaries and I have to love myself.   It is just a fact.   I will love myself as fiercely as I have loved those who have walked away.  I deserve this love.

I’m back.

Every morning I am making a vow to myself. I vow to comfort myself during times of hopelessness, depression, disillusionment or any difficulty that arises. I vow to be my beloved always and in all ways. I vow to never again settle for anything but first place in a romantic partnership. I vow to never abandon or lose myself completely in romance. I vow to live my life to the fullest. I vow to honor my spiritual path and create an amazing life. I vow to honor my calling and live my life as a work of art. I vow to listen to my inner voice of wisdom and honor my story. I vow to truly be there for myself and to grow and blossom into the most alive, beautiful and happy person I can be.